Somewhere in the static between stations, if you know how to listen,
five kids with guitars still believe they'll never end.
-
A haunting exploration of artistic legacy, the weight of dreams deferred, and what survives when everything else fades to static
A version of ‘Static Dreams’ has been published in the 4th issue
of Emerald City Ghost Magazine
Static Dreams
Rain hammers the windshield hard enough to drown out everything except Danny Morrison's voice. Coffee-rough, cigarette-scarred, bleeding through cheap speakers like he's sitting in the passenger seat.
"Tonight marks forty years since Neon Graveyard's 'Static Dreams' climbed to seventeen on Billboard." His laugh cracks through static. "Four decades since five kids thought they owned the world."
Dashboard lights smear across water-streaked glass. Red digits on the radio clock pulse: 11:47 PM. Elizabeth's fingers drum against the steering wheel—an old rhythm, half-remembered. Phone sits on the passenger seat. She'd been meaning to call in tonight. After all these years, finally say what needed saying. Speak his name again.
"I've got calls lined up, stories to share from the old days. And yes—" Danny's voice catches, just slightly. "I'll play the original demo live. Like Tommy did. Dave Mac's got fresh coffee brewing, board's humming like the old days, and—"
The boom rips through the speakers—a shriek of feedback. Metal tearing. Sparks popping like firecrackers in a tin can. Elizabeth's whole body jerks, foot slamming the brake. Tires shriek on wet asphalt.
Then nothing.
Silence fills the car. Her heart hammers against her ribs. Just her breathing and the drumming above. Empty highway stretches in both directions—no headlights, no signs of life. The emergency lights make her feel safer, safe into nothingness.
Her fingers slip on the radio dial, frantically spinning. Static hisses between stations like dying breath. 102.7 gives her talk radio. 103.1 bleeds country music. Where WXRK lived—where Danny's voice lived—only whispering hush.
She grabs her phone. Dials the station. Busy signal pulses against her ear, electronic heartbeat racing nowhere. Dials again. Again. Nothing connecting to nothing.
She goes back to spinning the dial, desperate for answers. One ear still to the phone. Static, static, traffic report, static—then a news voice cuts through, professional and measured:
"—explosion downtown in the Garrison Building. Fire department responding to what appears to be an electrical fire on the upper floors. The building houses mainly office spaces. No word yet on whether anyone was inside at this hour. Emergency crews are working to contain the blaze—"
Static creeps back in, eating the edges of words. She spins the dial again. Nothing specific, not yet.
Some pop song from last summer, bright and meaningless, fills the car.
Lightning splits the sky. Thunder rolls through her chest. In the silence where Danny’s voice should be, both mean the same thing.
-
"Tonight marks forty years since Neon Graveyard's 'Static Dreams' climbed to seventeen on Billboard."
The words warm and lazy in Danny's throat. His voice filling the space and making it home for another long nigh. Coffee steam rises from Dave Mac's mug through the sound booth glass, fogging the edges. "Four decades since we thought we owned the world."
Five phone lines blink red on the console. Callers waiting to share memories, calling to remember what it felt like to believe in forever.
He does. He remembers.
The mixing board breathes under his fingers—faders smooth, knobs responsive, LED heartbeat pulsing green-yellow-red. His old Telecaster leans against the desk, strings catching fluorescent light. Gold records hang in cheap frames. Not his records, but they remind him that someone made it. Someone's dream came true and stayed true.
On the wall in its place of honor, their band photo from '85. Five kids trying to look dangerous. Jimmy's Flying V slung low, Mike behind the kit, Sarah clutching her Rickenbacker bass like a life preserver. Tommy center stage, mic stand tilted at that perfect rock star angle. And Danny himself—younger, thinner, still believing.
The Battle of the Bands trophy sits close by on a shelf. Tarnished silver, base cracked, but still there. Still proof.
A fan letter under glass catches the overhead light. Your music caught me when I was in falling. Thank you. -Jennifer, 16. Blue ballpoint on creased notebook paper. Read again and again and again, twenty years in his wallet before he framed it.
The demo cassette spins in the deck. Static Dreams - Final Mix 3/15/85. Tommy's block letters bleeding red across the label. Same handwriting as his last note.
Dave Mac taps his watch through the glass. Take some calls. Make it interactive.
Danny punches line one. "You're on with Danny Morrison. Where were you when 'Static Dreams' hit?"
Dial tone. Electronic nothing bleeding through his headphones.
He tries line two. Dead air. Line three hums potential, then cuts to silence.
"Technical difficulties, folks." His voice stays professional while his pulse quickens. Live shows and the rush of the unexpected. "Let me share something while Dave works his magic."
Dave nods through the glass, adjusting something on his board. Solid, reliable. Gestures it will be a minute, to just roll on.
He does.
"Spring of '85. We're in this shithole studio in North Hollywood. Ten hours for two hundred bucks. The engineer keeps saying we sound just like every other Valley band." Danny's fingers brush the Telecaster, wood worn smooth under his palm. "Maybe we did. But when Tommy hit that first chorus, something just... clicked. I could feel it. We all could. The air changed."
Strings sing under his touch. In tune now as they were back then.
"Phone rings at midnight. Our manager, screaming that KROCK added us to rotation. Two weeks later, we're climbing the charts. Seventeen with a bullet." He strums the opening progression. Bright, clean tone through studio monitors. "For three months, we owned the world."
The song starts itself. Muscle memory older than most of his listeners.
-
"Tonight marks forty years since we climbed to... seventeen?"
Danny's mouth feels dry. Reaches for water. No glass. Strange, Dave usually remembers.
Three phone lines blink. Maybe four. The lights blur together. He feels the studio walls close in. Shadows pooling in the corners, night pressing in.
He tries the lines. Dead air on all of them. He rallies.
"The recording session. Let me tell you about..." He falters, suddenly exhausted, having to share it all again. The highs, obviously, and the lows. The wreckage that came after.
"Everything went wrong at first. Tommy's voice was shot from the night before. My amp blowing fuses. Mike's kick drum sounding like—"
Like what? Wet cardboard? Dead fish? The memory slips.
On the walls some faded photos. The band shot from 85, still in its place of honor, seems dimmer than usual. How long since he really looked at that picture? Liz looking good, as always, Tommy like a ghost already.
Dave Mac sits in his booth but the glass fogs between them. Coffee steam, maybe. Old building. Everything past its prime.
"Tommy died six months after we peaked." The words escape before he can stop them. Pills? Rope? Does it matter? "Couldn't handle coming down from seventeen."
The mixing board feels sluggish under his fingers. Faders sticking. LEDs flickering like dying fireflies.
"Lizzie moved to Portland. Teaches guitar to kids now. Mike does construction. Three daughters." Names dissolving even as he speaks them. “It feels good, building something that lasts. Bad not knowing in the moment.”
The Telecaster waits at his side, faithful. His hands find it, steady. Strings perfectly responsive, still in tune. The one thing that never fails him.
"I kept playing. Dive bars. County fairs. VFW halls." His voice strengthens with each word. "Playing our music for people who sing along. Different stages, same songs, same rush when the crowd joins in. Music's music. Always worth it. Always."
The guitar responds to his touch like it always has. Like it always will.
He’s singing before he even knows it.
-
Forty years. Or was it thirty? Time gets strange up here in the booth.
No phone lights now. Console dark. Dave's chair spins slowly in the empty booth, like he just left for a minute. Maybe to get more coffee.
Half the walls are bare. Tape marks and nail holes like scars. The air tastes wrong—metallic, electric, like spit before lightning strikes.
"I should take some calls." Voice cracking. "Dave? Are the phones—"
Silence from the booth.
The mixing board dies under his fingers. Faders lock in place, knobs frozen, electronic heartbeat flatlining. Half the LEDs give up, closing like eyes.
"Let me tell you about—" Stop. What story? Which memory? Faces blend together, names turn to static in his mouth.
The air won't fill his lungs properly. Too thin. Wrong. His reflection in the booth glass looks transparent. Fading.
The guitar jumps into his hand. Still solid. Still real. Wood against palm, strings under fingertips.
"Maybe I'll just play." Lost. "Sometimes music says it much better—"
He starts 'Static Dreams.' Voice raw:
"Midnight radio plays our song again
Five kids with guitars thought we'd never end..."
The next line dissolves. Evaporates. Can't remember why tonight mattered. Why any night mattered.
Studio walls press closer. Smaller. Darker. Emptier. Wider. Just him and the guitar and the weight of forty years. Or fifty. Or forever.
-
Tonight... tonight was... something about...
The mixing board is a corpse. No lights. No power. No electronic pulse. Dead metal under dead fingers. Walls mostly bare except one photo, faded and warped beyond recognition. Anonymous kids wearing dreams too big.
"Dave?" Whisper into nothing.
Nothing behind the glass.
His hands won't stop shaking. Guitar neck the only solid thing left. Strings still following commands. Still remember how to sing.
"We had this great song." Voice breaking on glass. "Made it all up to seventeen. But that wasn't the point, was it?"
He strums a chord. It echoes in the empty space. It feels right.
"The point was this. Making sound where silence wants to live. Being loud. Being heard. And I'm still here. Still playing. Still—"
Emergency lights kick in. Red exit signs glow like dying coals. Like a cat slow blink.
Heart wrestling against ribs, trying to escape. Cold sweat pooling between shoulder blades, shirt clinging to skin that burns and ices at the same time. Something's wrong. Something's impossibly, terribly wrong, but his brain can't hold the shape of it.
He plays harder. Desperate. Full chords, anything to make sound in the growing silence.
"Static dreams on the airwaves calling
Silver screens and the curtain's falling..."
His voice dissolves mid-chorus. The song fragments. Half-remembered verses mixing with static.
Darkness presses in. Reality bleeding out at the edges. Just him and the guitar and the echo of their huge, impossible dreams.
-
Is anyone... can anyone hear...
Can't even hear his own thoughts. Heart should be pounding but there's no sound. Mouth moving around air.
No board. No lights. No photos. Just guitar strings vibrating in darkness, the only proof he's still here. Still someone. Still somewhere.
Walls gone. Memory of walls gone. Even the idea of walls fading.
Body fragmented, scattered. Can't stop. Won't stop. Cold sweat, shallow breath, heart racing toward nothing. But can't grasp why. Can't hold the thought long enough to understand.
"I had something to say." Finally, his voice. "About music. About dreams. About—"
Words disappear mid-thought. Plays instead. Chords humming almost by themselves, knowing already.
"Midnight radio plays our song again
Five kids with guitars thought we'd never end
Leather jackets, dreams of neon lights
We owned the world on Saturday nights..."
For one second—almost remembers. Almost sees their faces. Almost tastes those lights, that sweat, that pain, that love again.
Then it's gone. Static between stations. White noise waiting for a turn of the dial.
Only the guitar remains. Strings singing in darkness. Holding that last echo as long as they can.
Then Silence.
-
"Tonight marks forty years since Neon Graveyard's 'Static Dreams' climbed to seventeen on Billboard."
Elizabeth's voice soft through the speakers. Older now, Northwest drawl softening the edges. Not Danny's voice. Never Danny's voice again.
"Four decades since five kids from Tacoma thought they owned the world." Her voice catches, steadies. "Danny Morrison was supposed to be here tonight, celebrating with all of us. Instead, we're here to say goodbye."
Static crackles between her words like tears.
"Danny loved music more than anything. More than money, more than fame, more than..." She stops. Breathes. "Last Tuesday, he died doing what he loved most. Singing live on air."
Rain on windshields. Headlights through the darkness. Radio static filling cars across the country.
"Static Dreams was always his favorite. He always said this song wasn't about us. It was about everyone who had a dream that burned bright for one perfect moment. So today, this is for Danny. And for all of you still listening. Still dreaming."
Mike's drums count in, older hands but same rhythm. Sarah's bass line, deeper now, weathered and mourning. They play "Static Dreams" for the last time, and it sounds different now. like a prayer. Like a promise. Like goodbye.
The song fades to static. Then silence.
Then Danny's voice echoes one last time, a reprise caught between frequencies:
Somewhere between stations,
if you know how to listen,
five kids with guitars still believe they'll never end.
"STATIC DREAMS"1
By Neon Graveyard (1985)
As performed by surviving members at Danny Morrison's memorial
Midnight radio plays our song again
Five kids with guitars thought we'd never end
Leather jackets, dreams of neon lights
We owned the world on Saturday nights
Stadium echoes in a basement room
Marshall stacks couldn't drown the gloom
Of knowing fame's a lightning strike
But we kept chasing anyway that night
Static dreams on the airwaves calling
Silver screens and the curtain's falling
We were kings for a moment's time
Now we're ghosts in the radio's rhyme
Static dreams, static dreams
Nothing's ever what it seems
Billboard charts and backstage doors
Forty cities, screaming for more
But the higher we climbed, the thinner the air
And one by one we disappeared
Tommy's gone and Mike moved on
Lizzie's kids don't know this song
But somewhere late at night I know
You hear our voices on the radio
Static dreams on the airwaves calling
Silver screens and the curtain's falling
We were kings for a moment's time
Now we're ghosts in the radio's rhyme
Static dreams, static dreams
Nothing's ever what it seems
Turn the dial
Find the frequency
We're still here
In the static between stations
Still believing
Static dreams on the airwaves calling
(We were young, we were everything)
Silver screens and the curtain's falling
(Now the silence is deafening)
We were kings for a moment's time
Now we're ghosts in the radio's rhyme
Static dreams, static dreams
Nothing's ever what it seems
Static dreams...
(Fade to radio static)
© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake. All rights reserved.‘STATIC DREAMS’ is an original piece by yours truly, a paltry offer at the altar of 80’s Classic Rock. I hope you can hear the roar of the crowd, smell the cheap bear and feel the press of the bodies around you, as I did while writing it.
As the base caresses your guts and the lights come up on stage, it’s 1985, and we are all dreaming Static Dreams.